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Everything posted by whitedawg22

The problem with these jerseys is that the white drop shadows are the highest-contrast element on the jersey, and are the first item to catch your eye. So the dominant design element of the jersey is a weirdly-shaped white block, rather than the team name or the player number. These would have been more visually appealing if the white and black on the number were inverted.

So it seems like there are three assumptions that don't quite fit together.
The black alternates are no longer in use.
The Color Rush program is no longer mandatory.
The new throwback uniforms have white socks to fit within the Color Rush program.
If the black alternates are no longer in use (and teams are only allowed one alternate uniform), the throwback could be the 49ers' alternate uniform, and they could wear the red socks worn in 1994. So the most likely explanations seem to be that either the black alternates are still available (whether or not they'll be worn this year), or that the NFL has prevented the 49ers from coming out with new alternate uniforms within 5 years of the debut of the black uniforms, which were originally designated as non-CR alternates.

I've heard of the "must include a basketball" rule as well, but I've never seen any hard evidence of it, and there are certainly some teams that seem to violate that rule. For instance, until this offseason's rebrand, the Nuggets didn't have any logo with a basketball in it. The Rockets, Bulls, and Blazers don't have any logo that contains a basketball element, and the Spurs didn't until this past season. And plenty of other teams only have a basketball as part of a rarely-used alternate logo (e.g. Hawks, Cavs, Warriors, Bucks).
What I'm saying is that while that's a pervasive rumor, I'm not sure if it's an official rule (if you know otherwise, please share!). And if it is an official NBA rule, it's an incredibly dumb one.

The real question will be whether they're detail-oriented enough to swap the current helmet logo (gold oval inside the black oval, slight drop shadow on the SF) for the '90s one when they wear the throwbacks. Of course, the actual 1955 uniforms used plain red helmets, so we'd be talking about a 1994 throwback rather than a 1955 one.

I have no inside information, but I'll be kind of shocked if the new throwback isn't the 1994/1955 uniforms. Not only is it a good looking uniform that differs noticeably from the current set, but they won the Super Bowl the last year they wore it, and that's something cool. And 1994 was at the very start of the team apparel merchandising boom, so there aren't that many 1994 throwback jerseys floating around already.
The 1959-63 jersey with the shoulder hoops is cool as well, but it's more or less the current road jersey with different sleeve striping. To the average fan, I'm not sure if that's enough of a difference to buy another jersey, which is ultimately the point of any alternate uniform.

Teams that have rebranded recently and use a roundel logo include the Astros, Blue Jays, Twins, and Nationals. The problem is more pervasive in the NBA, due to most teams attempting to include a basketball in their logo for some reason - recently added NBA roundels include the Hawks, Nuggets, Pacers, Pistons, Warriors, Wolves, Sixers, Raptors, and Wizards.

I agree with you that the throwbacks should stay as throwbacks, worn once a year on Thanksgiving. In addition to being low-contrast, the look is a little too simple and traditional for a team wearing silver with a dynamic, leaping lion as the logo.
That said, I think their current primary home and road uniforms do a nice job of establishing enough contrast, and I really like that they ditched the black. The darker gray keyline around the numbers on the home jersey gives just enough contrast and pop, and high contrast is less important than it used to be now that everyone has huge HD TVs. And the road uniform is the perfect balance of blue and silver. I think they're now arguably a top-5 uniform in the league.

A few mercenaries from the 1994 San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl team:
Gary Plummer (played most of his career with the Chargers)
Rickey Jackson (played 13 of his 15 years with the Saints)
Deion Sanders (played only one year as a 49er)
Charles Mann (played 11 of 12 years with Washington)
Richard Dent (played 12 years with the Bears and only one with the 49ers)
Toi Cook (played 7 years with the Saints, only two with 49ers)
Bart Oates (played 9 years with Giants, only two with 49ers)

Every uniform should be assessed in its context. The 1950s uniforms were fine-looking uniforms in an era where every uniform was relatively minimalist and had long sleeves. The Millen-era uniforms looked like somebody slapped random black trim onto the 1990s Lions uniform, which is exactly what happened. No, the 1950s uniforms shouldn't be brought back as a full-time uniform today (although they're great at Thanksgiving, as a reminder of the dominant Lions teams of the 50s), but the Millen-era uniforms were a joke design-wise.

I grew up as a 49ers fan, and I liked this set much better once they switched to gold pants in 1998:
Not only did the pants provide better balance with the helmet (which was the only significant gold element on the 1996-97 uniforms), but they fit in better with the dominant teams of the 80s and early 90s. However, the one caveat about bringing that back today would be that the 1998 pants were a magnificent, rich gold, and I don't know if Nike's current textiles (which lean more toward drab matte colors) could replicate them:
The 1998 uniforms wouldn't look nearly as good with khaki-ish pants like the 49ers have in their current set.

Although I really hate gray jerseys, sleeves, and the dumb Adidas shoulder loops, I liked the rocket-block side panels of their alternate from a couple years ago.
If they're going to work more black into the color scheme, as many of you seem to think, I hope they go in this direction.

I remember seeing speculation that it would be the 1966-67 "Batman" jersey.
They're a little bit limited because they need to pick a uniform with black helmets, due to the one-helmet policy, which eliminates accurate throwbacks from the 1945-62 period. But even aside from that rule, the only truly distinct options are the 1963-65 jerseys with yellow numbers and arm stripes (which are essentially the same jerseys as the 1946-62 throwbacks with a yellow helmet that they wore from 2007-2011), the bumblebee throwbacks they're currently wearing, or the 1933 "shield" throwbacks that they wore in 1994. Since the Batman jerseys are the only throwbacks that haven't already been used, more or less, I think they're going to go with those.

I couldn't disagree more. Not only did the darker helmets not match the purple of the uniforms, but they sometimes looked almost reddish in direct sunlight.
The new helmets fixed both of those problems, and the metallic color added a little visual pop to the uniform as well.

The Detroit Pistons have an interesting history in this regard. First, some background - a piston looks like this:
Note the iconic shape of the piston on the bottom. This was echoed by the team's first few primary logos - lines connecting an outer shape to an inner circle or oval:
Then, of course, the Pistons went away from the iconography of a literal piston in their 1996 change. However, they still used an automotive-themed logo, as their horse (get it, horsepower?) had chrome exhaust pipes:
After determining that the horse logo was fatally '90s, the Pistons went with the most generic possible wordmark-over-basketball logo for nearly a decade, which probably only lasted that long because the Pistons won the 2004 NBA Championship with it (technically, they had the horse logo as a primary through the 2004 season, but used design themed around the logo below):
When the Pistons decided to bring back the "classic" piston logo in 2017, they changed it... notice the tweak?
Not only was the font updated, which is fine, but the inner white circle was broadened to be tangential to the outer white circle. This makes no sense - look again at the photo of the actual pistons above. If the inner circle shape met the outer circle shape, the metal would be infinitesimally thin at that spot, and the piston would fall apart. Maybe they wanted to go with a sleeker shape for the modern classic logo, but in doing so, they ended up with something that doesn't really look like a piston.
So I don't know what category I'd put the Pistons in - the original iterations of this logo were somewhat abstract, but clearly intended to represent pistons. Now you could argue that they're still pistons, but given the change, you could also argue that they're an abstract design intended to recall a throwback logo, rather than an actual piston.

The only thing you said that I agree with is the helmet striping. It could be changed, but honestly, tapered stripes are the Panthers' look now, so I don't mind them. They would be worse if they were introduced to a new uniform now.
Carolina blue looks great as an accent color. The current uniform balances perfectly between silver and blue, in my opinion.
Newton's stripes are the best-looking ones on the team. They're much better than the chunky stripes that flare to the outside that are worn by most players on the team - both as an independent design element, and in how they parallel the helmet and pants stripes.
The current, outline-less logo looks much better than the outlined logo they had until ~5 years ago. The white outline was jarring, pointless because black and silver have plenty of contrast, and wasn't echoed by the black-and-blue helmet stripes.